Geek deals: $199 for Yoga tablet with 18-hour battery life

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When it comes to tablets, there is a lot of the same old stuff on the market today. Form factors are all fairly standard, with 8-inch poised to be the new fan favorite, and the technology is also homogeneous. Late last year, Lenovo kicked off a massive tease campaign around finding a #BetterWay to hold a tablet.

While the resulting announcement didn’t quite blow anyone’s socks off, they’re still cool products: the Yoga 8 and 10 Android tablets. As you plainly see in the photographs, these tablets have a cylinder built into the chassis that serves as a comfy hand-hold and the perfect reservoir for an over-sized battery that provides 18 hours of life.

The battery capacity is so generous that there is a USB charging port built into the battery cylinder that will let you juice up your smartphone on the go. If your on-the-go computing needs are on the more minimal side, you could conceivably ditch the laptop and extra chargers for just a Yoga tablet and your smartphone. How’s that for going mobile?

The rest of the tablet is run-of-the-mill for 2013, but that’s not a bad thing: quad-core processor, HD IPS screen, Bluetooth, 802.11n WiFi, GPS, dual cameras, and microSD slot. Also built into the handy cylinder grip is a flip-out stand that props the tablet up for good hands-free upright viewing. The cylinder also makes a handy prop for laying the tablet down to type.

Discounts have been pretty minimal on the Yoga tablets to date, but now you can grab the 16GB Yoga 8 for just $199, the lowest price yet and extremely competitive against other 8-inch tablets, which don’t even come close in battery life. The 32GB version runs $60 more and is a harder sell considering both models have a microSD expansion slot.